


bridge dealings

by youcouldmakealife



Series: between the teeth [17]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A winning streak feels better than a losing streak, immeasurably better, but it can mean as little in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bridge dealings

David doesn’t want to think too much about that night. He knows how Jake can get into his head. It’s not fair to blame him for the slump, earlier, that’s on David, he simply did not play well enough, but he’d be equally foolish to pretend that Jake has no effect on his play, especially when they’re sharing the ice. 

It’d be harder to ignore, he thinks, if the Islanders didn’t start winning. Not just winning — they take five straight, and the entire room is almost quiet after the fifth win, stunned with good fortune. David’s trying not to get his hopes up, he knows better than to get his hopes up, even when guys around him are murmuring about riding it all the way. They’re still far out of playoff berth, and he knows how rare it is for a team to elbow their way into berth at the midseason point. The teams who are there in December are there in April, maybe the eighth and ninth seed swapping, maybe even the tenth crawling up. They’re eleventh. It’s foolish to think they’re going to get anywhere with it.

Except they keep winning. They drop the sixth game, but it’s to the first seed, a small salve, and then they immediately take two more. If the room was quiet, shocked before, it’s loud now, everyone self-congratulatory, everyone talking about the playoffs, media, fans, players. David keeps his mouth shut, notices Kurmazov does too. There’s a long way to go, yet. 

They win against the the Canucks, 5-2, Vancouver looking stunned, confused in the wake of it. David gets a call after the game, ducks out of the room.

“Shit yeah,” Jake says.

“Don’t you have a friend on the Canucks?” David asks. He’d tried not to meet Markson’s eye during the game — if he knew anything, David didn’t want to know, didn’t want any confirmation that Jake made a promise he couldn’t keep. 

“Yep,” Jake says, popping the ‘p’. “Gabe’s one of my best buds. That was still awesome.”

David allows himself a smile. It was two points to add to their tally, and two points for him personally. As games go, it was a good one, and Vancouver’s Stanley Cup is hardly behind them. 

A winning streak feels better than a losing streak, immeasurably better, but it can mean as little in the end. David knows this, but the Islanders have never won like this before, steady, the roster a well-oiled machine, the system making sense, the goals that keep coming. They’re crawling up the standings, tenth place, ninth. 

There’s nothing they can do about it. They can win every game — and they do, the hope in David’s chest growing, catching in his throat before he can say anything about it — but other teams have to lose, and they don’t. They don’t lose. 

The final game of the season is meaningless, which David has grown bitterly accustomed to, but this time, they were knocked out of contention the night before, and it burns worse than both of his other years with the Islanders combined. 

_tough break :(_ Jake sent, the night before, and the only reason David didn’t snap something back, hurl his phone at the wall, was because Jake had already been knocked out of contention, that the Islanders sat spots ahead of the Panthers in the standings. It’s a petty thing to be proud of, or not even proud, to take comfort in. It doesn’t matter if the Islanders were two points away or ten, the season’s over. But even so, at least they were better than the Panthers. At least they had a chance. 

They’re on the road. Their last home game they got a standing ovation, the crowd a little heavier, less scattered, in the face of watching a playoff push. They’d all had hope.

There’s nothing to do, this game, other than skate off, defeated, a useless two points in their hands. 

Kurmazov doesn’t usually touch him off the ice, but David knows it’s his hand heavy on the back of his neck without looking up.

“Next year we make it,” he tells David, and he’s heard that from everyone’s mouth, management down to call-ups who probably won’t even be on the roster when next year comes around. It’s a platitude, but from Kurmazov’s mouth it sounds like a statement of fact.

David doesn’t believe in promises, which is why he doesn’t ask Kurmazov to make it one, but he wants to. Promises himself instead, nothing he can’t achieve, nothing out of his control: that next season will be the best of his life. No one to measure himself against except his past achievements, and he’s been told so many times that they aren’t good enough that it should be easy.

David will be staying in New York for the summer. Dave didn’t mention the Toronto camp, and David doesn’t know if that’s because it’s not relevant, either because it no longer exists or because it’s inadequate, or because Dave doesn’t want to engineer any contact between David and Jake. He doesn’t ask about it. New York City probably would have been the better choice for last offseason, and it certainly is the better choice for this one, when they got so close, but fell just short. 

He has plans for next year.

He gets a text from Jake a week after the season’s over, _if i come 2 ny can i c u?_

David has plans for next year, and he needs to focus on them, keep his head straight. His head’s never been on straight when Jake’s around. He’s not assigning blame: if anyone’s to blame, it’s probably him, for continuing to let it happen even after he knows how bad it gets to him. He’s not assigning blame, but without Jake, he’s better. 

_Sorry._ , he sends back, and he honestly does mean it. 

Jake doesn’t text him back until the next day. David wasn’t expecting a return text at all. _can i still text u?_

The answer should probably be the same. That answer would make Dave happier, and leave David more focused — though not for sure, because he knows from experience that silence on that front can be as distracting as texts themselves, if not more, even when you’re the person responsible for it.

 _OK_ , he sends, and knows he probably doesn’t deserve the smiley he immediately receives in response, but it still makes him feel better.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
